Army's Readiness and Morale Destroyed

Hey Herkdriver.

A few days ago I saw that other thread Create your perfect Army 3000 BC to 1200 AD that wasn't getting any action until today. I haven't checked it out yet to see what's going on since it seems to be active now. But a few nights ago I picked up a book I haven't read for twenty years and started rereading it. "The Harpers Encyclopedia of Military History." -> < http://www.amazon.com/The-Harper-Encyclopedia-Military-History/dp/0062700561 >
The book goes back to 3500 B.C.

The Romans carried 50 lbs. and they didn't carry it on their backs but on a pole like in those pictures you see of a hobo with a stick and a bag hanging at the end of the stick.

Right now I'm at page 434 "The End of the Middle Ages" (1400 -1500 AD) 50 pounds seems to be the norm so far. Man may have been smaller back then but were stronger than the average man today. Soldiers shouldn't be going into combat with more than 50 pounds on their backs.

 

If you were running the Pentagon, would approve a tank, an airplane or ship that was 40% less strong? Have a breakage rate 4 times higher? And caused significant moral problems?

I would hope not. But if your agenda is have more women in all aspects of the military, and then lower the standards AT ALL---then I would not support your agenda.

Pray tell, what tests are you basing your PC ideology upon? Where have women proven they can perform the extreme physical tasks of modern dismounted infantry?

If women really are up to task, then you should have an all-female team of Green Berets fight in the mountains of A-Stan---assuming you could lower the standards enough to let a dozen females pass training.

 

Sounds like the Navy's Little Crappy Ship (LCS) that the Obama administration keeps building and everyone of these crappy ships have broken down but they keep on building them. -> http://www.politicalforum.com/warfare-military/437497-navy-s-ships-future-sunk.html

 

I personally don't support women in the infantry, certainly for no other reason than to appease a feminist voting bloc.

Given the current trend to draw down combat troops, why fix what isn't broken.

The military loadouts is a separate issue, but worth discussing because it does relate to combat readiness also. Numerous studies from the war in Afghanistan in particular, did indicate the heavy combat loads translated to a higher risk of injury and non-deployability.

We're treating a finite resource, a physically fit trained soldier or Marine...like a veritable pack mule.

Sorry, but telling them to "suck it up" is not a viable military doctrine in the long haul.

Lighten the darn loads. Not so females can pass, but to sustain the physical performance of our foot soldiers.

Yes survivability has increased dramatically, but we're setting them up for long-term health problems.

Human beings have physical limits regardless of the level of physical fitness. The Army seems to suggest, doing more ruck marches is the answer, the equivalent to saying the load's not too heavy, you're too out of shape.

 

Don't get me wrong, I believe combat loads are an issue worth discussing. However the only time it actually is discussed is when the topic is women in combat arms.

 

Most of that weight is in our body armor. That is by far the single biggest item, around 50-70 pounds, depending on the exact type and number of plates inserted.

Sorry, but most of us are not willing to do away with that, no matter how much weight it saves.

The second biggest weight item is water. A single gallon of water is just over 8 pounds. So figure another 12-16 pounds there, typically more weight then our weapons.

There, that accounts for the vast majority of the weight we carry around with us on a regular basis. How do we reduce that exactly? Go back to the days where we have no body armor? Not carry enough water with us so we get heat stroke? And this is their "combat load", combat loads do not include things like packs and tents and the like, it is the minimal equipment that they take with them into a known firefight.

 

Which brings us back to technology and exoskeletons acting as muscle supporters...sort of a high tech back brace. I don't envision something along the lines of Edge of Tomorrow science fiction.



There is a viable prototype however something along the lines of an undetectable under-suit exoskeleton. It's not going to give the wearer superhuman strength, it would distribute the weight more evenly through pulleys and levers and would be battery powered

It's a question of cost really.

Another promising solution is graphene nano-technology as it relates to lightweight armor equivalant in stopping power to heavier ceramic plates. The same graphene technolgy may produce portable water purification filters so not as much water is required to carry into combat. Right,there, the body armor and water a soldier wears and carries probablly accounts for alot of the weight. One technology could potentially solve two issues.

The DoD learned a lot from fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq as it relates to the future of the foot soldier going forward in a modern military. Combat loads increased along with survivability, but so did musculo-skeletal injuries.

There is a saying...

Any fool can suffer.

I don't think alleviating the weight bearing injuries related to heavy combat loads and body armor means the foot soldier is getting weaker...it means suffering in and of itself does not make them better warfighters.

 

Which will actually drastically increase their weight load. And we are still talking science fiction, well over a decade away. I only seriously discuss what is available now, or in the immediate future (2-3 years).

Currently, the most optomistic expectation of the US Army is part of the "Future Soldier 2030". Of course, the program also thinks it will get more tech in the field, like "robot dogs" to warn of explosives or chemical attacks, resupply drones to carry their non-combat load for them from logistics bases to battlefields, and brain implants to allow them to process the large amounts of data they may have to deal with.

That was the prediction in 2009 when this program started, over 5 years ago. And we are still not much closer to it being available in 2030 then we were then.

Nothing personal, but remember that I never take into consideration programs such as this. All to often, they never ammount to anything.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5871053/robert-heinleins-predictions-for-the-year-2000-from-1952

 

From an Air Force perspective there was the C-27J, a medium sized tactical transport aircraft capable of operating from shorter unprepared runways. While it wouldn;'t eliminate the individual soldier's combat load in any appreciable way, it would have been another method of resupplying forward operating bases in addition to the CH-47 and C-130.

It was an existing aircraft and the program was canceled.

It boils down to funding really. Numerous studies in the past 10 - 15 years suggest the combat loadout is too heavy.
Our soldiers are the equivalent to Christmas trees. Yes, the equipment is getting lighter but there's more of it to hang from ALICE and MOLLE packs.

Congress prefers to solve the problem with Ibuprofen.

 

U.S. Air Force shelving brand new C-27J Spartan aircraft after spending millions
A dozen aircraft have been sent directly into storage at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz. The aircraft &#8212; which can take off and land on rough runways &#8212; has been deemed a luxury the Pentagon can't afford.

 

It will not solve it at all. In every unit SOP I have ever been in, a requirement was to carry all protective equipment (which I already listed), around 1.5 gallons of water, and enough MREs for 1 day. Even if the plan is only for a 4 hour patrol, that is the standard because you never know when SHTF is gonna happen, and you may be out longer then planned.

So what aircraft can do to reduce this, I have no idea at all. We do not use our MOLLE or ALICE packs unless we are moving to a permanent encampment. And 95% of the time we move there by some kind of vehicle. The longest hike we do with that much weight is to and from the runway to where we will be sleeping.

When I deployed in 2009, I had a MOLLE pack overflowing with all of my gear (as well as 2 duffle bags). Then once I got in-country, it was unpacked in my sleeping area, to remain until it was time to go home. So why you seem to think the Infantry routinely travels with that much weight, I have absolutely no idea. My entire time in the grunts, I generally had no more then 25-35 pounds of gear in my pack. Generally sleeping mat, sleeping bag, shelter half, a spare book, and a few other items I might need. And I carried more then most, since I always had a 2 quart canteen on my pack.

 

http://thedonovan.com/archives/modernwarriorload/ModernWarriorsCombatLoadReport.pdf

U.S. Army Center for Army Lessons Learned
Task Force Devil Combined Arms Assessment Team
(Devil CAAT)
The Modern Warrior&#8217;s Combat Load
Dismounted Operations in Afghanistan
April - May 2003
Task Force Devil
Coalition Task Force 82, Coalition Joint Task Force 180
OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM II

This report is 119 pages, and I don't expect anyone to read the whole thing from cover to cover. I'll provide the overall findings...this is not paraphrasing, this is a direct quote.

2.0 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS The dismounted Infantryman continues to be over-burdened while conducting modern
combat operations. The excessive weights that U.S. Army light Infantry forces are carrying on their backs in Afghanistan are neither the fault
of poor unit discipline nor Soldiers taking too much gear into operations. The fault lies in the fact that these Soldiers are carrying mission
essential equipment that simply weighs too much. The excessive weights on the backs of these fit Soldiers, coupled with the
harsh environments found in Afghanistan, prove detrimental to maximizing Soldier performance. Despite units going to great lengths to minimize the loads that their Soldiers are carrying while still ensuring that they could accomplish their assigned combat missions, the weight of the Infantryman&#8217;s combat load is far too great and considerably exceeds the upper envelopes established by Army doctrine.

The weight of the combat load borne by the dismounted warrior can only be reduced through a combination of providing the Soldier with
lighter systems while also off loading any and all equipment that is not immediately needed in a firefight, to alternate forms of transportation.

 

''Army's Readiness and Morale Destroyed''



Just like the faked "missile gap" and other Cold War pretensions - nothing but lies from the right wing, not a word of truth in any of that anti-American propaganda.

 

Plus...I'm not bringing up the issue of instituting lighter loads merely to level the playing field for females in the infantry.

There's the serious issue of mixed gender units that under the unique conditions of close quarters living will present their own challenges. I'm not advocating on their behalf, personally, I think leave well enough alone and keep direct ground combat jobs exclusive to males. What I am advocating is not pretending these young men can simply "suck it up" with the expectation any and all physical and psychological challenges should be endured unnecessarily.

The report I referenced has no hidden agenda. The conclusion is simple, though the solution is complex. Currently the infantryman's combat load is too heavy. One alternative is indeed technology...not Sci-Fi based movie magic...but practical physics based technology



The technology exists today, to alleviate some of the weight bearing burden placed upon a soldier's joints if indeed they must accept essential gear cannot be sacrificed or lightened further.

 

I believe it was JFK who used the fake missile gap.

 

And how much of the fake missile gap was perpetuated by the Soviets themselves?

I present to you, the GR-1, known to NATO as the SS-X-10 Scrag:



It was the Soviets themselves that claimed they had "scores" of these missiles. To bad they never worked. What a lot of people in the modern era forget is that a lot of the estimates of what the Soviets had came from the Soviets themselves. And they would often proclaim that they had systems that never worked in reality. It was not until decades later when the USSR collapsed that the world really came to understand how much of their military claims were nothing but maskirovka.

 

The Royal Armed Forces allow gays and TG persons to openly serve and they are hardly a weak nation their armed forces are formidable for the size of the nation, I don't care what private parts they have or who they sleep with I care about will they defend me if an enemy is a threat. People in the service who don't like this are bigots and need to get with the 21st Century.

 

To bad "Stars and Stripes" scrubbed all of the comments they received from British soldiers on the day that a lame duck Congress without allowing any debate on the floor and repealed DADT by the Obama administration lying to Congress. Hundreds of British soldiers were commenting on the announcement on "Stars and Stripes" that the U.S. military was legalizing buggery in the military. At the time "Stars and Stripes" offices were closed so it took awahile before they started scrubbing all of the commenst.

Basically the comments were that the American people and Congress have been lied too when it came about gays serving in the British military, that there has been many problems with gays serving in the British military.

First of all the British objected allowing gays to serve, it was the EU courts that forced social engineering upon the British military. So what did the Brits do ? They keep the peter puffers in the rear with the gear so there wont be any problems with unit cohesion in the combat units.

And the Obama's administration of polling the troops about gays serving in the military.

Well the first polling the Obama White House didn't like the results so they conducted a second polling having the answers before the polling even took place. The Obama White House operates that way so they say.

Center for Military Readiness &#8212; Policy Analysis &#8212;

DoD Inspector General Exposes Improper Activities to Repeal the
Law re Gays in the Military (Don&#8217;t Ask, Don&#8217;t Tell)

With White House &#8220;Spin&#8221; the Fix Was In &#8212; at Expense of the Troops

Executive Summary:
A previously-undisclosed investigation conducted by the Department of Defense Inspector
General strongly suggests that the so-called Pentagon &#8220;study&#8221; of gays in the military in 2010 was
a publicly-funded, pre-scripted production put on just for show. The 30-page, DoD IG report,
completed on April 8, 2011, reveals improper activities and deception that misled members of
Congress in order &#8220;to gain momentum in support of a legislative change during the &#8216;lame duck&#8217;
session of Congress following the November 2, 1010, elections.&#8221; (DoD IG Report, p. 20)
In 2010 the Defense Department&#8217;s Comprehensive Review Working Group (CRWG)
commissioned an official survey of over 400,000 troops and families, and conducted scores of
focus groups worldwide to seek opinions on the law usually called &#8220;Don&#8217;t Ask, Don&#8217;t Tell.&#8221;
Uniformed personnel who participated in good faith were led to believe that their opinions would
be heard and respected. But as early as July 4, 2010, even before the official survey of troops
began, CRWG Co-Chair and DoD General Counsel Jeh Johnson was seeking advice from a
&#8220;former news anchor&#8221; on how to write the report&#8217;s Executive Summary more &#8220;persuasively.&#8221;
The DoD IG report concluded that someone who &#8220;had a strongly emotional attachment to the
issue&#8221; and &#8220;likely a pro-repeal agenda&#8221; violated security rules and leaked misleading
information to the Washington Post. On November 11, 2010, the Post published a highlymisleading
story suggesting that &#8220;70%&#8221; of active-duty and reserve troops surveyed were not
concerned about repeal of the law. The DoD did not correct the unauthorized &#8220;spin,&#8221; which was
widely publicized and cited on the floor during Senate debate. The ultimate result of this
travesty was a rushed vote to repeal the law regarding homosexuals in the military, with delayed
implementation, during the December 2010 lame-duck session of the 111th Congress.
Investigators interviewed 96 of 101 people with access, but stopped short of questioning five
named White House officials who met to discuss the draft report on November 9&#8212;just before
the carefully-spun leaked story appeared in the Washington Post. One of these was James
Messina, Deputy Chief of Staff for President Obama and the designated &#8220;liaison&#8221; to LGBT
activists. Messina, hailed by gay activists as an &#8220;unsung hero&#8221; in the drive to repeal the 1993
law, is now the campaign manager for President Obama&#8217;s Chicago-based re-election effort.
The purpose of the contrived CRWG process was to neutralize military opposition to repeal of
the law by manufacturing an illusion of support. The administration misused military personnel,
funds, and facilities to help President Obama to deliver on political promises to gay activists at
the expense of trusting troops who became unknowing props in the pro-repeal campaign. The
112th Congress should question White House officials who were not interviewed previously, and
do everything possible to repair the damage done to our military...

continue -> http://cmrlink.org/data/sites/85/CMRDocuments/CMR_PolicyAnalysis062111-A.pdf

 

Your link shows he later dropped its use but right wingers in Congress continued to make use of it against Dems well into the 1980s.

 

I'm proud of our military and the young people who choose to serve in it.

I think there are a ton of jobs women can do in the military and they can be very, very good at them. I have great respect for them.

That said, I do not believe they should be in Marine or Army infantry MOS's. The battlefield is no place for a social experiment. Lives hang in the balance.

My son was a Marine infantryman. He owes his life to very strong young men who were able to physically rescue him after an IED explosion in Iraq. Truth, right there.

These SJW's have never been on the ground in combat. None of that matters to them.

I'm reminded of something author Samuel Johnson wrote in the 18th century....

"Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal; and he may be properly charged with evil who refused to learn how he might prevent it."


My two cents ...

 

On more then one occasion I (as a permanent walker) have lapped females who are running the test. My passing minimum for the 2.5 mile walk is 37 minutes, but for a female of my age, her minimum passing 2 mile run time is 24 minutes. I normally walk 2.5 miles in 22 to 23 minute timeframe.

And as for the standards, does anybody really believe they will remain the same? Because we have seen for ourselves in the past that does not remain the case.

I present for those that do not know of this phase in military history, "Project 100,000". Also known as "McNamara's Morons", "New Standards Men", "Moron Corps", and other names. In short, as part of President Johnson's war on poverty, they stated that they would accept into the military 100,000 individuals that did not meet the standards, due to medical, medical, educational, or intelligence disqualifiers.

But the 100,000 exploded to over 300,000 individuals. And this was passed as a "Civil Rights" measure, to allow those to gain training and advancement in the military but could not because of discrimination which prevented them from getting proper training and education. And the results were horrible.

People placed into jobs they had no way of being able to handle. Barely literate soldiers turned into clerk-typists, sub-intelligence individuals turned into helicopter mechanics, the list goes on and on. Finally most were simply put into 2 jobs they thought they would do the least damage in, truck drivers and infantry.

And these individuals suffered mugh higher rates of discipline problems, as well as higher then average injury and death rates in combat. And now they want to repeat the experiment with females.

Now the Moron Corps was over before I joined the military, but they were still talking about it. There are a few in here I am sure that remember serving in that era, and what those individuals were like. But it seems to me that is what they want to do again.

 

Good writing.

I totally agree with you about the unit cohesion aspect of it all. Our military is made up of young people. Any time you put men and women together, especially of that age, it's going to create sexual tension. Perfectly normal. And it is extremely common for service members to fall in love, date, have sex, and some marry each other. All of this is to be expected when you put young men and women together.

And this is the other reason why women should not be put into infantry units. SJW's think of "unit cohesion" as being unimportant at best, an impediment to their goals at worst. But you ask infantrymen who have served in direct combat on the ground for long periods of time on multiple deployments and ask them about the importance of "unit cohesion", and they will tell you it is a matter of life and death. They don't want anything detracting from it. Frankly, these red-blooded, heterosexual, testosterone filled young men don't want them there. Truth, right there. Behind the lines, sure. Not next to you in combat.

 

With me, these are largely minor issues.

I have no doubt that there are females that can do as well, if not better then men in many of these key areas. However, how many resources do we put into trying to find this small percentage that can perform this well? How many resources do we invest in terms of time, training, and money? And then what do we do with the majority of females that are not able to perform to the standards?

The current norm is that if somebody washes out of their primary MOS, they are then discharged from the military, unable to ever again re-enter the military. Do we do this, and see 90% of the females then kicked out just to keep 10% of a minority that even want to persue this field? I see this as a horrendous waste of resources, including the most valuable resource of all, the people who want to join in the first place.

I am not willing to see women used as a sacrificial goat in the name of "political correctness".